A Bay of Blood (1971)
Last Watch Date - August 3, 2023
Total Times Watched - This is THE FIRST
Comments
You familiar with giallos? No? Let me tell you about them. Giallo is Italian for "really corny horror-mystery with a bunch of titties." That's straight out of Google Translate, so don't yell at me.
When you go into a movie like this, there's an understanding that you're going to be watching something that is objectively bad. Not the story per se, but the framing, the sound, the acting, the dubbing, the lighting, the sets, the ... Basically everything that makes a movie is going to be bad. HOWEVER. If you know that going in, you can brace yourself and try to find the good parts.
Let me be clear when I say that the acting in this is horrendous. I mean, it's bad for even 1971 standards. I think they tried to make it somewhat good, but man it's bad. But when you've got a terrible script, how can you act out of that? You can't. Make no mistake, I'm not saying these actors would've worked if they were in Raging Bull. They're terrible. But the script is also terrible.
At this point, you're thinking "why am I even going to bother continuing reading this? He hates it" but oh ho ho you'd be WRONG there pal. The story in this picture (I am talking like an old guy to reflect the time of the movie) is straight up weird. Weird in a really good way. It's not really so much a mystery like a normal giallo as it is a series of backstabbings (not literally - most stabbings happen in the front) as it is a bunch of twists where people are turning on each other. They set it up initially as a mystery but then reveal the killer within the first.. 30? minutes. From there, it gets all backstabby. Ok, it's still not very good, but it's entertaining.
Recommended?
Do you like bad movies? This one is possibly for you!
